Been looking slowly through Special Modifications (hence all the posts today. sorry!) and noticed there are a lot of a things you /can't/ do with the item/weapon crafting. Now, I know it will be between me and my gm, but I was wondering what your thoughts were on allowing the use of an existing item to be used as step 1 and 2 for your template and resources. So instead of picking say the energy pistol template for 200 you buy the precision pistol for 1k, spend your 12 hours at 3p difficulty and get (die roller don't fail me now) 1 hit and 1 triumph net at my current 2y2g. So I successfully constructed (customized/upgraded) the pistol at its book stats but use the triumph to reduce the crit rating from 4 to 3 with that particular roll.

I figure in the long run you could get some pretty exotic weaponry but at much higher cost than a 100% custom job. Do you think this would get too out of hand for your game or add a little extra customization during down times beyond just slapping an attachment on the weapon?

I would have to handle turning existing items into a template on a case-by-case basis. The existing templates are very generic, and I think there's a reason for that. In order to make a basic blaster pistol, you have to craft the energy pistol template and get two advantages to select the stun setting feature. Adding specific qualities to already specialized designs has the potential to create overly effective weapons.

That said, I will be talking with my GM about adapting the gadget and cybernetics templates to handle a wider variety of items, because the potential special benefits of crafting vs. buying are much slimmer. The main thing I'll be looking for is making more compact tools so I can cram a bacta tank into my workshop or carry a more complete toolkit out into the field.

Your dice pool, is this a beginning character?

More or less. We've got a few sessions in but haven't raised any of my mechanics stuff beyond gearhead. It was a good places to start. I know down the road you can be throwing 5 yellow, 3 blue, maybe another green etc. but for the purposes of this question I stuck with what was applicable to my current situation. Your millage may vary!

The game is definitely balanced and structured to support long term campaigns. There are plenty of house rules to speed things along.

I'd probably just stick with the RAW personally. Skewing them for a starter PC only unbalances the crap out of them as they advance.

I’d be inclined to let PCs take an existing item and turn it into a template, but it would take a fair amount of work and resources to make happen. They might have to buy multiple copies of the item to be studied, etc….

I would not be inclined to allow them to use this to make an easy end-run around the item creation rules. They would have to spend on the same order of the same amount of money and effort (if not more) to take an existing item and reverse engineer it into a template, than it would take to make a template for it from scratch.

But I certainly wouldn’t simply rule it out.

Now, once they’ve got their template, if they want to turn into a weapons manufacturer and start building those things in large quantities, I’m going to throw all sorts of additional … problems … at them. They will have just painted a huge bullseye on their backs, and drawn the attention of some people they really don’t want to have pissed off at them.

I, myself, do find the templates in the book very basic, as well. I would have thought a professional mechanic should be able to emulate one of the generic weapons from the CRB quite reliably, at least; per RAW it's impossible to craft a HBP, for example (you'll always only have advantages or threats). So, I've been thinking about a solution; these are my ideas, so far:

1) All generic weapons (no distinct model) can be acquired as templates by some means.

2) The mechanic can, in advance, apply a few reasonable disadvantages and get their worth in threats as extra advantages.

3) When crafting with net advantages, instead of cancelling all threats, the mechanic can voluntarily keep some and apply them together with the same ammount of advantages.

A HBP crafted would need following effects: Stun Setting, Destructive, Heavy, Ammunition-Inefficient, and possibly Expensive; that's five advantages and four to six threats.

A HBR (Energy Rifle): Destructive, Auto-Fire, 2x Heavy, and 3x Cumbersome, also perhaps half Expensive; six advantages, five to six threats.

Don't forget the tables in step 3 are only suggestions, not absolutes.